2020 hopeful and South Bend, Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg is facing mounting calls to resign in the wake of a police shooting controversy that has rocked his campaign and hometown.
A former city official in South Bend wants the Democratic candidate to step down and focus on his presidential campaign, since he can’t seem to run and govern at the same time. Former Common Council president Derek Dieter said that the “selfish” Buttigieg hasn’t been able to dedicate himself to running his city.
“Because of Pete’s selfishness, in my opinion, he is still the mayor,” Derek Dieter said in an interview with The Washington Free Beacon.
Buttigieg faces calls to resign
Buttigieg’s until-recently picture-perfect campaign was embroiled in controversy this month after a racially charged police shooting in his hometown. The killing put Buttigieg in a vulnerable position as he seeks the nomination of a party that has made fighting injustice in policing a priority.
The shooting has posed a leadership test for Buttigieg, who until recently skirted criticism with the help of an adoring media. Commenting on the controversy, Dieter said that he has nothing against Buttigieg running for president, but the mayor needs to pick a lane.
“To me, it doesn’t make sense. If you’re running for president, that’s a lot of pressure, you got to be on the road,” he added. “Everything that happens in South Bend shouldn’t be on your mind. You should be concentrating on running for president. So, I’m adamant that he should resign as mayor.”
While resigning as mayor would allow Buttigieg to focus on his campaign, it would likely kill any hope he has of becoming president. Lacking experience as a federal lawmaker, Buttigieg has had to emphasize his record as mayor instead.
“If you’re going to be running for president, that is a tremendous responsibility to do,” Dieter said. “And if you’ve made a decision to do that, I think at the end of the day, South Bend has to be in your rear view mirror.”
A special prosecutor was appointed Monday to investigate the June 16 shooting in South Bend of Eric Logan, who was shot dead by police officer Sgt. Ryan O’Neill. The officer responded to reports of suspicious activity in an apartment parking lot when, according to him, Logan approached him with a knife. O’Neill’s body camera was not on at the time.
Buttigieg bubble bursting?
Buttigieg took a detour from his campaign last week to address the controversy back home. Many say that the mayor’s handling of the matter has been selfish and insensitive, with some saying that Buttigieg has shown an entitlement for the black vote. Buttigieg was already struggling in the polls with blacks before the shooting sent his campaign into a tailspin.
The mayor faced angry residents at a town hall on Sunday, where he was criticized for an inability to reform policing in the city during his tenure. Tensions were high as Buttigieg, who fired the city’s first black police chief in 2012, was criticized for his handling of police controversies that had been dredged up by the shooting.
“Fire him like you fired Boykins!” one resident shouted.
“Get the people that are racist off the streets,” another woman said. “Reorganize your department. You can do that by Friday.”
In another awkward moment last week, Buttigieg told a crowd of black protesters that he “wasn’t asking” for their vote, to which one demonstrator shot back, “You’re not going to get it.”
Meanwhile, a South Bend police union accused Buttigieg of “exploiting” the shooting for “political gain” and dividing the police and the community. The Fraternal Order of Police Lodge No. 36 wrote in a Facebook post that it would “not waver” in its support of Sgt. O’Neill and accused Buttigieg of focusing on “one incident and one family” for his own political purposes.
“Mayor Buttigieg’s comments have already and will continue to have a detrimental effect on local law enforcement officers and law enforcement officers nationwide,” the group wrote, adding that “his comments are driving a wedge between law enforcements and the community they took an oath to serve.”
With all this chaos brewing back home, Buttigieg is still slated to appear at the Democratic primary debates Thursday night.
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